Spencer Prentice, visiting for an hour’s meeting, also prickled at Foster’s arrogance and shaded his eyes from the flash to cover his own crabby expression, the whole thing reminding him he’d rather be somewhere else; anywhere else.
“Diaz is out, and now Clemens is washed up…,” Foster bragged, swinging his socked feet up onto the desk and puffing hard on his cigar. “So, what’s next on my agenda? Solving world poverty? Get Bono on the phone,” he laughed.
SNAP!
Don Thomas cringed.
Spencer’s normally hard-to-read face recoiled at Foster’s brazen conceit. Too late, he saw that Don Thomas, stooped on the airconditioning ledge over by the window, had observed him. “Robert,” Spencer refused to call the presidential candidate Bobby, “that’s how it looks today, but you know better than I do that three weeks are…”
“Yeah… a long time in politics. You came here for a reason, Prentice?”
Spencer was smouldering and cleared his throat to control himself. “Everything points to a win,” he said slowly, “but that’s not the point…”
“It’s not about winning?” Foster said, unable to keep the smirk off his face.
Spencer bit on his scorn. “How you win is important, surely.” How could it be otherwise? He glanced at Don for support but got the same sneer he’d seen on Foster. What was it with these two? “Robert, you’re getting the numbers but unless things change you’ll be seen as the usurper stealing someone else’s throne.”
“Hank Clemens?” said Foster, extracting his cigar and spitting some leaf to the floor.
SNAP!
“Oh, fuck her,” Foster said, faking a smile through the glass to Niki’s camera. “Hmm, maybe I will… fuck her. What do you think of Niki Abbott, Prentice?”
“Wha…?” Spencer couldn’t believe this. Through the glass partition he saw Niki posed behind her camera in a body-hugging red silk suit and her ever-present baseball cap, its peak twisted to the right, just like her politics. “It’s a signed Ted Williams cap, you know. Anyone who desecrates a Red Sox heirloom like that doesn’t deserve attention. How do you work with her hovering around?”
“We manage,” Foster said. “Prentice, what did you mean I’d be Clemens’ usurper?”
“No, Isabel Diaz’s,” Spencer corrected. Was Foster really so thick?
“Her. You’ve always been, er, close to her, haven’t you?” Foster winked, like a father discovering his son’s stash of porn on his computer.
Spencer resented the implications—sexual innuendo, party disloyalty, ugh!—especially from this pretender, but he kept his face blank.
Don Thomas was now leaning so far forward on the window ledge Spencer worried he might fall into a duck dive to the floor. Unknown to Spencer, Don had given Foster a similar message two days earlier after he’d found a parody website called ImposterFoster.com. “Prentice,” said Don, “Seems you and me are sharing the same nuthouse. Come slobber over here with me.”
“Buddy boy,” Foster said to Spencer, the bounce in his voice barely masking a concern, “even if I agree with you, what can I do about it, exactly?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Spencer could see Don smiling. Then it dawned on him… this was why Don had invited him here. “You’ve got to show strong, uniting leadership… That you’re for all Americans, not just those who vote for you.” He braced himself, “In your victory speech, you should announce you’re inviting Isabel Diaz into your Cabinet.”
“Fuck! Fuck, no! Clemens has already promised he’ll do that,” said Foster, dismissively waving his cigar and casting a gruff eye to Don. “Newsflash! I’m way out in front,” he continued. “I don’t need to be Mr Me-Too.”
“Clemens’ offer was a desperate ploy in a struggling campaign. I’m talking about your victory speech, Robert. That way she can’t refuse you, either. Bipartisanship... the right thing… bring the country together. All that.”
Foster swung his feet to the floor and leant across the desk. “And if I don’t want that bee-yatch in my Cabinet?”
Spencer was aghast, “Then you should offer her something else with stature… Speaker of the House?”
“Where have you been, Prentice? She can’t even be a member of the House. You know… the Con-stit-u-tion? You Bostonians learn about that old piece of parchment?”
Disgust welled up inside Spencer but he controlled it. He’d heard worse and from “better” people. He eyed Don for support but the strategist had flipped his spiral-bound notepad open and was bent over it jotting, avoiding his eye.
Spencer shuddered just being with this pair, let alone with the notion that they would be in charge of his country for the next four years.
30
ELIA CACOZ WAS celebrating. She still had Simon and she’d cashed her first new paycheque. She clinked her beer glass against Simon’s. “To my first story on FOX.”